Peter Pan
by frozen-delight
Summary: Seeing Sully again makes Sam realize that in many ways, Dean is still a child. Coda to 11x08 "Just My Imagination". Sam&Dean gen.


**Peter Pan**

Counting sheep might be a great way to fall asleep, but counting different ways of getting into the deadliest part of Hell and coming up with only two options, both extremely dangerous and neither with more than a ten percent guarantee of return? Not so much.

Sam rubbed a hand over his face, got out of bed and padded towards the kitchen. The floor was cold under his feet. Maybe he should take a leaf out of Dean's book and get himself a pair of cozy grandpa slippers. (Though there was no way he was ever putting on the dead guy robe!)

Light shone through the partially open kitchen door. Apparently he wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. He sighed—

And gaped at the sight that greeted him, which immediately drove all thoughts of Lucifer, the Cage, and the Darkness out of his mind: Dean was sitting at the table, devouring the rainbow-colored snacks Sully had prepared! God, was that a marshmallow nacho chip in his hand?

Several questions burned hot on Sam's tongue:

 _What are you doing? Do you want to give yourself a heart attack?_

 _Weren't you disgusted by those earlier? Why_ aren't _you disgusted?_

Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself before he blurted out any of them. It was something he was getting scarily good at—censoring himself in front of Dean. He still flushed with shame when he thought of all the times he hadn't. When he'd casually hurt Dean, mocking him for being too stupid, rapping him for his unlawful lifestyle, never taking into consideration that Dean had neglected his own education to help Sam with his, or that his moral superiority had been secured by Dean's pool winnings and credit card fraud.

Well, like he'd said to Sully earlier, he'd been a jerk kid.

Thinking of Sully, then, it struck him that Sully wasn't the only one whose heart he'd broken with a callous, _I don't need you anymore_.

He remembered all the times he'd walked away from Dean. _I don't need you anymore. I'm smarter. Stronger. Better_ , was always heavily implied.

The ghosts of Flagstaff or Stanford or Ruby still haunted Dean, and unlike with real ghosts, he had no idea how to deal with them, burying each betrayal under a layer of bitterness and Whiskey, but never laying them to rest.

Sam sat down across from Dean and gave him what he hoped was a charitable smile. He nodded at the marshmallow-covered nacho chip in Dean's hand. "I liked those as a kid."

Only when Dean's hand froze in mid-air and the tired look in his eyes hardened to something like defiance did it hit Sam that his comment had probably come across nowhere near as kind and neutral as he'd intended.

After all, Dean was eating like a child right now. And not only right now, actually. No matter how good a cook he was and how much he enjoyed playing house in their bunker, Dean still mostly lived of fast food and candy. He adored things that were both salty and sweet, and he could never resist a piece of cake, the more sugary and artificial it looked, the better.

The little kid fondness for sweets and the limited eating choices of their claustrophobic motel childhood—Sam had grown out of it, but Dean hadn't.

The realization was followed on foot by another: While Dean had always seemed so grown-up to Sam when he was little, the reverse was true. Just like Sully had tried to cheer Sam up with cholesterol bombs he hadn't touched in over fifteen years, whenever they fought Dean still tried to make up the way he had when they were younger—by bringing Sam an exotically flavored coffee and letting him choose the aliases on their next hunt.

In many ways, Dean was still a child.

First of all, there was his sense of humor—that of a nine-year-old. An immature nine-year-old. Then, there was the fact that part of him was an eternal six-year-old who still seemed to think that all their problems would just magically disappear as long as they didn't talk about them. And finally, when he was happy, really, really happy, Dean's smile made him look no older than four; a smile that instinctively made Sam want to reach out and take the beer bottle out of his hand. Come to think of it, Sam hadn't seen that smile in a very long time.

In recent years, the childlike light inside Dean had grown steadily dimmer.

Probably that was why Sam tried so hard to tread carefully around him. Because while Dean's childishness might exasperate him to no end, it was also the most uplifting thing Sam had ever known. Without his childlike joy and innocence, Dean would be an empty shell, or a mindless killing machine, but certainly not Dean, not any longer.

He popped one of the nachos into his mouth and watched Dean relax marginally.

The taste of marshmallow and nachos combined made him gag and grimace first, but then he found himself relishing it with something close to nostalgia. It was a reminiscence of home and childhood, as multi-flavored and difficult to swallow as home and childhood had always been for him. Maybe it tasted the same to Dean.

"We'll have to visit the dentist's when we're done here," Sam joked, gesticulating at the colorful snacks on the table.

"Don't see why we shouldn't just ask our resident angelic doctor to fix our teeth up for us," Dean replied.

Sam laughed. "Man, that's just lazy."

After a moment of careful deliberation, he chose the muffin which looked the least likely to give him a sugar rush. Nibbling on it, he remembered the absolute confidence and affection in Sully's eyes when he'd said, _You're a hero, Sam_. Sam had never realized just how badly he'd needed to hear that. By his own admission, Dean wasn't very good at the whole sensitive verbal massage thing. In his own way, he was trying to be a little more fair, to treat Sam like an adult, but well, he was still Dean, in the end. Even when beaten bloody, he'd still try to comfort Sam with an _It's gonna be okay. I'm here_ , or, _We'll figure it out. We always do_. But the words _I believe in you, Sam_ , those never made it across his lips with any similar ease. Thank God he'd had Sully. Still _had_ Sully.

Dean, though, Dean had never had anyone like that. No one had ever told Dean _You're Dean and Dean is so awesome_ when he was young. Given how he'd always looked up to Dean in something embarrassingly close to hero worship, Sam had never thought it was necessary. Every look, every action had said, _I wanna be just like you_. But subtlety had never been Dean's thing. Maybe he really needed to hear the actual words.

"Hey, um," Sam said awkwardly after he'd polished off the rest of his muffin. "You know you're awesome, Dean, right."

With wide eyes, Dean stared at him, the piece of chocolate cake in his hand forgotten. Several emotions passed over his face in quick succession. Surprise. Disbelief. A fond glint of amusement, the kind Sam had chased so hard when he'd been little, that had made him feel like he was at the top of the world; the kind that said _You're a dork, Sam, and I love you_. Guilt. Annoyance. Eventually, Dean settled on what Sam had come to label as Dean's Superior-Big-Brother-Duh-I-Don't-Know-What-You're-Talking-About glare.

Like the coolest guy in Cooltown, Dean shrugged. Winked. "Course I do. I hear that from chicks every day."

Sam felt the strong urge to bang his head against the table, even if it meant getting sugar masses in every color of the rainbow all over his face.

Dean was already terrible at dealing with criticism, but when it came to dealing with praise—it was nothing short of abysmal.

What stopped Sam from losing his patience was the thought that he'd be gone soon, and that he didn't want it to be like all the other times he'd left.

One night, shortly before he'd undertaken the third trial, he'd dreamt of reuniting with Amelia after closing the Gates of Hell.

 _I left to save the world,_ he'd tried to explain himself to her, but she wouldn't have any of it.

 _You left because you didn't care enough to deal with the mess our lives had become_ , she'd told him.

On some days he thought she might have been right.

Which was why he needed Dean to understand that this time, he really wasn't running away. He was only trying to fix the mess he'd created. And if he—if something went wrong, he wanted Dean to know that none of Sam's reasons for leaving was that he didn't love Dean, or that Dean wasn't good enough, not a single one of them.

"I mean it," he said, and hated the way Dean's shoulders immediately tensed up. "You're—you made me mac'n'cheese with marshmallows when I was little!"

Okay, maybe he still needed to practice that whole think before you speak thing a little.

Curiously enough, though, Dean relaxed and laughed. "You finally ready to admit a man can't live of rabbit food alone, Sammy?"

And the crinkles around his eyes said, _Anything for you, Sammy. Always. Always._

"Yeah." Sam smiled. "Yeah."

This was a start. He could work with that.

* * *

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